He also felt the bitter anger, felt it compel him forward, but he would not let the bitter anger control him.
No, he would slow himself, use his training and his cunning.
He would not, however, use his right arm. His hand was swollen and barely functional, and the arm itself quivered and throbbed inside the broken-branch splint.
He came to a clearing, and from it he could see the cemetery on a distant hill to the west. He looked around, tried to determine where a sniper would position himself, and realized the best place would be in the woods on the far side of the clearing.
Court pushed himself back into the trees and moved to his left, finally following fresh footsteps that crossed in the clearing far back in the hilly pasture, fifty yards or more below the crest of the hill on the far side of the cemetery, and surely behind any sniper overwatch. From here he made his way over a waist-high barbed-wire fence and into the trees again.
The crows of the forest cried, their movement above him in the bare branches constant, as if they were shadowing his progression in the forest. An audience to the impending show.
He was close now, he had to be. Another thirty yards and he would be at the front edge of the forest, the perfect location for a sniper to secret himself, giving him both a clear view of his target on the far hillside and cover from the woodline.
He followed the footsteps past a little ditch on his left that wound away to the south, and then, also on his left, a frozen pond lay at the bottom of a steep drop-off.
He followed a narrow walking path on a hill over the pond; with the frozen ground and the six inches of fresh snowfall his footfalls were soft and quiet, but he knew he had to leave the path to close on his target. He moved as slowly as he could, only once looking at his watch and finding he had run out of time, but unwilling to rush forward now, so close to his destination.
He had gone only a few yards off the path when he placed his right foot down on a large felled tree hidden under the snowfall. It felt sturdy, so he stepped up on it, then reached his right foot out to find another solid step.
Below his foot he felt a tree branch that jutted from frozen mud, and he decided it was large enough to take his weight. He stepped down on it, swung his other leg over.
The branch cracked, the sound shockingly loud in the still forest.
Shit. The noise was enough to send the crows above flying from their branches.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Whitlock watched the motorcade pull up to the entrance to the cemetery, and he pushed the pain in his hip from his mind, knowing he would need a soft heartbeat and a relaxed pulse to make the twelve-hundred-yard cold bore shot.
As the first members of the entourage appeared at the entry gate on the far hill, Russ heard the unmistakable crack of a tree branch twenty-five yards behind him.
His eyes narrowed.
And then they shut. He lowered his forehead to the buttstock of the rifle and rested it there.
Just like that, he knew his plan had failed. Gentry was here. Townsend had not managed to finish him.
In the back of his mind Whitlock knew this had been inevitable from the beginning.
Two locomotives on the same track.
But wait. He lifted his forehead off the butt of his rifle. If Russ could dispatch Gentry quickly and quietly, and he could make it back here to his gun in time, he still could salvage this. The thought of a twelve-hundred-yard sniper shot with a heart rate amped up from close-quarters battle seemed improbable, but Russ knew if he slung enough bullets down there at the cemetery, shot anything in the area he could get his sights on, then he might still pull this off.
It would be ugly, but if he got the job done he would still get paid.
First things first, Russ thought, and he rose silently to his feet, wincing with the pain in his hip.
Court arrived at the northwestern edge of the forest, and he saw a two-story house fifty yards to his left. The large backyard of the property ended near him, and a small greenhouse was positioned near the tree line. Court looked out past the yard and realized the greenhouse had a perfect line of sight on the cemetery.
This would be Dead Eye’s sniper’s nest.
To reach the greenhouse from behind Court made his way across a tree limb, then turned onto the path, over the frozen pond, careful to avoid making noise or slipping in the snow and falling down the hill.
He lowered to a crouch for the last twenty-five feet to the greenhouse, moved past a large oak tree on his right, then quickly glanced down to his left, wary of the drop-off to the frozen pond, forty or fifty feet down the hill.
Just as he cleared the oak tree he heard a whipping sound close behind him; his reflexes kicked in and he threw his left hand up instinctively.
A cord grabbed his hand, yanking it against his face and throat, and the cord pulled him back into the trees on his right.
It was a garrote, he knew instantly, and it bit into his neck on the right and squeezed his hand against his neck on his left. His broken right arm flailed around in its splint, trying to make contact with the man behind him, but he could not effectively defend against his attacker with it.
Whitlock pulled Gentry down on top of him; they were almost prone, but the thick brush by the oak tree kept them off the forest floor.
Russ pulled and pulled and pulled, frustrated by Gentry’s hand caught in his garrote, but he did not let up for an instant.
Court kicked his legs and fought to get his pinched hand out of the constriction. The hand was keeping him from choking to death, but without it he couldn’t put up any fight whatsoever, so he knew he had to free it somehow. He slammed his head back, trying to hit Russ in the face, but Russ was ready for that, and he moved his head out of the way.
Court uttered a guttural scream as the panic in him grew. He swung his torso left and right, desperate to break his hand free of the thin but strong cord.
Court swung his broken right arm up to his face and got his mouth on the end of the Ace bandage around the splint. As Whitlock began shaking him left and right, doing his best to prevent his victim from mounting any kind of a defense, Court pulled the splint apart with his teeth. The two broken branches spilled out, and he managed to wrap his weak right hand around one of them.
Knowing well his maneuver would cause excruciating pain, Court threw his broken arm up over his head, and the sharp broken edge of the stick came back into Whitlock’s face, jabbing him on the cheek and narrowly missing his eye.
Russ loosened his grip on the garrote for just an instant as he shifted to get away from the attack to his face, and that was all the time Court needed to free his left hand.
Once his hand was out he grabbed the broken branch out of his right hand. He felt the garrote tighten anew around his throat, and his airway was completely cut off. His eyes bulged in their sockets and his face reddened.
With his left hand, Gentry took the stick and reached back to Whitlock’s waist, dug under the other man’s coat and belt, found the bandaging over his gunshot wound, and pried it off. As Russ began screaming in agony Court jabbed the stick into the infected hole, turning and digging down through tender muscle.
Whitlock let go of the garrote and thrashed away, grabbing at his side and swinging a punch at Gentry at the same time.
Court rolled in the opposite direction, tumbled down into the bushes clutching his throat and sucking in a chestful of icy air.
Both men took a moment to tend to their injuries in the middle of the mortal combat. But in seconds Russ was up to his knees and climbing to his feet above Gentry. He reached into the small of his back and pulled out his Glock 19 pistol.